There’s a lot of over-blown talk these days about APIs. Everyone wants one, everyone’s promising one. You might ask: “What’s the difference between using an API to put a port in a specific VLAN, and just scripting the equivalent CLI commands?” Here’s a couple of examples I’ve come across recently which show why screen-scraping (i.e. CLI scripting) sucks.

Recently I’ve been thinking about Cisco Prime Infrastructure, and Cisco’s continued resistance to supporting non-Cisco equipment. I’ve been wondering if this is good for Cisco, and if they should face reality, and add support for non-Cisco devices.

HP has released Version 7.0 of Intelligent Management Center. This is a significant upgrade from 5.2, and greatly modernises the interface. (In case you’re wondering, version 6 was never publicly released. Seems IMC number is matching Comware numbering?). While most workflows are identical, the look and feel is quite different. Here’s the highlights of the new features:

This is a quick overview of Splunk - what it is, how it works, what makes it good, and how you might use it. I like Splunk, and I think most engineers should have at least a passing familiarity with it.

Cisco recently announced they have invested $10M into Loggly, a Cloud-based log management service. I had vaguely heard of Loggly before, but never properly investigated it. Let’s dive in and find out: What is Loggly, how does it work, why/where would I use it, and what other options do I have?

What is Log Management, and why should I care? Can’t I just grep through logs when I need to? Isn’t syslog on its own enough? This post will give an overview of log management, and in part explain why products like Splunk exist.

Today marks one year since I passed CCIE Routing and Switching, and was branded number 36708. This is supposed to be a huge achievement, bringing fame and fortune, right? You’re supposed to immediately change jobs, with an accompanying large pay rise, right? No more drudgery for me, I’m a rock star now! Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? Let’s look at what’s changed in the last 12 months for me: